Rail"ing*ly, adv. With scoffing or insulting language.
Rail"ler*y (rl"lr* or rl"-; 277), n. [F. raillerie, fr. railler. See
Rail to scoff.] Pleasantry or slight satire; banter; jesting language;
satirical merriment.
Let raillery be without malice or heat.
B. Jonson.
Studies employed on low objects; the very naming of them is
sufficient to turn them into raillery.
Addison.
||Rail`leur" (r`lyr" or r`yr"), n. [F.] A banterer; a jester; a mocker.
||[R.] Wycherley.
{ Rail"road` (rl"rd`), Rail"way` (- w`), } n. 1. A road or way
consisting of one or more parallel series of iron or steel rails,
patterned and adjusted to be tracks for the wheels of vehicles, and
suitably supported on a bed or substructure.
The modern railroad is a development and adaptation of the older
tramway.
2. The road, track, etc., with all the lands, buildings, rolling stock,
franchises, etc., pertaining to them and constituting one property; as,
a certain railroad has been put into the hands of a receiver.
Railway is the commoner word in England; railroad the commoner word in
the United States.
In the following and similar phrases railroad and railway are used
interchangeably: --
Atmospheric railway, Elevated railway, etc. See under Atmospheric,
Elevated, etc. -- Cable railway. See Cable road, under Cable. -- Ferry
railway, a submerged track on which an elevated platform runs, for
carrying a train of cars across a water course. -- Gravity railway, a
railway, in a hilly country, on which the cars run by gravity down
gentle slopes for long distances after having been hauled up steep
inclines to an elevated point by stationary engines. -- Railway brake,
a brake used in stopping railway cars or locomotives. -- Railway car, a
large, heavy vehicle with flanged wheels fitted for running on a
railway. [U.S.] -- Railway carriage, a railway passenger car. [Eng.] --
Railway scale, a platform scale bearing a track which forms part of the
line of a railway, for weighing loaded cars. -- Railway slide. See
Transfer table, under Transfer. -- Railway spine (Med.), an abnormal
condition due to severe concussion of the spinal cord, such as occurs
in railroad accidents. It is characterized by ataxia and other
disturbances of muscular function, sensory disorders, pain in the back,
impairment of general health, and cerebral disturbance, -- the symptoms
often not developing till some months after the injury. -- Underground
railroad or railway. (a) A railroad or railway running through a
tunnel, as beneath the streets of a city. (b) Formerly, a system of
coöperation among certain active antislavery people in the United
States, by which fugitive slaves were secretly helped to reach Canada.
[In the latter sense railroad, and not railway, was used.] "Their house
was a principal entrepôt of the underground railroad." W. D. Howells.
Rail"road`ing, n. The construction of a railroad; the business of
managing or operating a railroad. [Colloq. U. S.]
Rai"ment (r"ment), n. [Abbrev. fr. arraiment. See Array.] 1. Clothing
in general; vesture; garments; -- usually singular in form, with a
collective sense.
Living, both food and raiment she supplies.
Dryden.